IN FEBUARY 2013, Senator Rand Paul delivered a speech at the Heritage Foundation. It was called “Restoring the Founders’ Vision of Foreign Policy.” In it Paul sought to outline a fresh foreign-policy path for the Republican Party, which was tepidly beginning to debate the limits of intervention abroad. At the outset Paul declared, “I see the world as it is. I am a realist, not a neoconservative, nor an isolationist.” He argued that radical Islam posed a threat to the United States but that the best way to defang it wasn’t to engage in permanent wars in the Middle East. Instead, he invoked the shade of George F. Kennan, asserting that a containment policy toward Iran and other countries would be the most effective way of deterring America’s foes:

I think all of us have the duty to ask where are the Kennans of our generation? When foreign policy has become so monolithic, so lacking in debate that Republicans and Democrats routinely pass foreign policy statements without debate and without votes, where are the calls for moderation, the calls for restraint?

Anyone who questions the bipartisan consensus is immediately castigated, rebuked and their patriotism challenged. The most pressing question of the day, Iran developing nuclear weapons, is allowed to have less debate in this country than it receives in Israel.

Paul’s speech did not receive much attention, but the following month his thirteen-hour-long filibuster of John Brennan’s nomination to become CIA director did. Paul became something of a folk hero for his rather sweeping denunciation, on civil-liberties grounds, of the Obama administration’s widespread use of drones to kill suspected terrorists. Paul said he would “speak as long as it takes, until the alarm is sounded from coast to coast that our Constitution is important, that your rights to trial by jury are precious, that no American should be killed by a drone on American soil without first being charged with a crime, without first being found to be guilty by a court.”

Two years later, as the Republican presidential race heats up, however, the GOP is doubling down, whether the issue is government surveillance or confronting foreign adversaries. One possible presidential aspirant at this year’s Conservative Political Action Conference said this about the need to counter the virulent threat posed by the Islamic State: “When I look at spending and what we should spend money on—this or that or national defense—for me, the priority is always national defense. . . . Our freedom is threatened from outside our borders.”

In books like The Conscience of a Conservative and Why Not Victory?, Goldwater expounded upon the necessity of confronting foreign bad guys. Goldwater, who was influenced by both Buckley and Gerhart Niemeyer, a fanatical anti-Communist professor at the University of Notre Dame, said that triumphing over Communism was imperative. It was a mistake to regard nuclear war with the Soviet Union as “unthinkable” since that would automatically confer an intolerable advantage on the Kremlin. “A tolerable peace,” Goldwater said, “must follow victory over Communism.”

Goldwater’s political heir was Ronald Reagan. Reagan led the charge against Richard Nixon’s and Henry Kissinger’s promotion of détente with the Soviet Union. In 1976, Reagan, who battled Gerald Ford for the party’s presidential nomination, said at the Republican National Convention in Kansas City that “Henry Kissinger’s recent stewardship of U.S. foreign policy has coincided precisely with the loss of U.S. military supremacy. . . . Under Kissinger and Ford this nation has become No. 2 in military power in a world where it is dangerous—if not fatal—to be second best.” As president, though, Reagan was too cautious and pragmatic to act upon his words. He engaged in an arms buildup, but he also adhered to the terms of the SALT II treaty even though it was never officially ratified by the Senate. What’s more, Reagan relied on proxies rather than attempting to engage directly in regime change, apart from a minor operation in Grenada in 1983. By the end of his term he had signed sweeping arms-control agreements with the Soviet Union. This Reagan, along with his successor, George H. W. Bush (who performed the diplomatic heavy lifting that ended the Cold War peacefully), has been airbrushed out of the picture.

Much of this has occurred because the terrorist attacks of September 11 prompted George W. Bush to revive the militant Goldwater credo. Just as Goldwater had declared that “we must always try to engage the enemy at times and places, and with weapons, of our own choosing,” so Bush said at West Point in June 2002 that containment was “not possible.” Instead, he argued, “We must take the battle to the enemy, disrupt his plans, and confront the worst threats before they emerge.” This remains the lodestar for hawks such as Senators John McCain, Lindsey Graham and Tom Cotton. The Iraq War has proven to be no more than a temporary speed bump for the promoters of a new confrontation with Iran.

In a talk at the Heritage Foundation in January, for example, Cotton revived the Bush-Cheney gospel. Iran is a “radical Islamist tyrannical regime”—which is true but does not distinguish it from a number of other countries in the Middle East. The negotiations with Iran, he said, were a “sham”—which may turn out to be correct but isn’t yet clear. It was time to turn to the military: “Congress can do so not only by imposing new sanctions, but also by offering to transfer advanced weapons like surplus B-52 bombers and 30,000-pound bunker-busting bombs to Israel.”

THIS TRUCULENT disposition is the main driver of Republican foreign policy. Already Republican budget hawks are running up against defense hawks. With off-budget maneuvers being employed in the House of Representatives to bolster the defense budget, it seems unlikely that the former will prevail against the latter. It will be very difficult for any Republican candidate to deviate from orthodoxy during the primaries. The truth is that the triumphalist camp is resurgent, molding and shaping the general tone of the foreign-policy debate.

Nevertheless, the questions that Paul raised a few years ago in his Heritage address about American power and Kennan’s legacy of containment remain pertinent and urgent—even if he himself has stopped raising them. The United States does face some threats from abroad that can’t be stopped simply by diplomacy and require military force. But there is a difference between containing threats and attempting to extirpate them as part of a crusade to end evil. It can never be sufficiently stressed that the injection of a strident moralism into American foreign policy has consistently had pernicious effects, whether it was in World War I, Vietnam or the Iraq War.

Indeed, as David Bromwich notes in this issue, while it is easy to interpret the age of American power from 1945 to 2003 as a narrative of unalloyed good—one that moves seamlessly from the Berlin airlift and the Marshall Plan to the fall of the Berlin Wall, the bombing of Yugoslavia and the rise of an independent Kosovo—another, less benignant interpretation is also possible. It would begin with the Vietnam War, move on to the interventions in Central America, followed by the expansion of NATO by Bill Clinton and George W. Bush, and conclude, for now, with the bungled wars in Afghanistan, Iraq and Libya. If Republicans wanted to mount a serious critique of Obama, they would focus not on the peripheral issue of Benghazi but on the fact that his incursion into Libya has further destabilized the Middle East, partly by sending fresh weapons and jihadists into Syria. So far, however, they have indulged in a culture of irresponsibility when it comes to foreign affairs. To promote the notion that Washington can safely and effectively conduct a new round of regime change around the globe isn’t simply mistaken. It’s utterly detached from reality.

As the moralistic fervor of this crew reaches new heights, it would be an error to forget that, as Arthur M. Schlesinger Jr. once observed, “The Anglo-American tradition . . . has long been addicted to the presentation of egoism in the guise of altruism.” And so, since the collapse of the Soviet Union, Washington has, more or less, not simply attempted to maintain a preponderance of power but actively nursed the byssine illusion of omnipotence. But the very attempt to establish dominance has undermined it. As Kennan observed at the height of anti-Communist hysteria in 1954, “A foreign policy aimed at the achievement of total security is the one thing I can think of that is entirely capable of bringing this country to a point where it will have no security at all.” Wise words, then as now.

131 comments:

Of course, the true litmus test of any Republican, first and foremost, outreaching any and all other issues, concerns and priorities, is the complete act of fealty to The Jewish State of Israel and the total subordination of the interests of the 315 million Americans to the colony club of seven million chosen recipients of eternal financial and political support of the US Conga Line.

Rand is after all, in order of priority and importance, a politician, a Republican, a supporter of Israel, a water carrier to his financial supporters and masters, and then various and sundry interests to his political constituency, of no particular interest except to get himself re-elected.

... and the first thing that you could think of as a Republican had nothing to do with US values, nothing with any domestic or economic concerns, no political interests in the Americas, security issues with China, Europe or Russia, no issues of the environment, economy, jobs, public welfare, taxes, education, health or defense. Nothing. As a Republican dolt, your first love and observation is:

Idaho BobMon May 11, 01:49:00 AM EDTRand has become a supporter of Israel.

This long article outlines how Obama has screwed the pooch in the middle east, from Egypt, to Syria, to Libya, to Iraq, to Yemen, to Iran.

He has now no idea what he is doing, or even trying to do.

It's all bullshit now, one long big womp of a craparoo.

Obama is the worst President in American history.

The Mideast Maelstrom on Obama’s WatchMay 11, 2015 by Joseph Klein

Rarely in the history of American foreign policy has a U.S. president been so fundamentally wrong about a vital region in the world, with lethal consequences. President Barack Obama’s legacy will be an unstable, roiling Middle East and North Africa. His policies are enabling a more aggressive Iranian regime to spread its Shiite brand of Islamic jihad throughout the region and gain a path to becoming a nuclear armed state. His withdrawal of all combat troops from Iraq in 2011, coupled with his abetting of the false hopes of the Arab Spring, have given rise to a strengthened Islamic State with ambitions for a transnational caliphate.

From the very beginning of his first term, President Obama has sought to foster closer relations with the Iranian regime. He ignored the dissidents in the streets of Tehran and other Iranian cities, who were beaten, tortured and killed in June 2009 as they dared to defy the ruling mullahs. Obama thought he would be better off showing respect to the regime’s leaders. That way, he reasoned, he could win them over to negotiating a nuclear deal that might channel the regime’s behavior towards playing a more constructive role in the Middle East region.

Obama is doggedly pursuing nuclear arms negotiations, making major concessions along the way despite fierce objections from America’s Gulf State allies, much less Israel. As former Secretaries of State Henry Kissinger and George P. Schultz noted in their April 8, 2015 Wall Street Journal op-ed article, “America’s traditional allies will conclude that the U.S. has traded temporary nuclear cooperation for acquiescence to Iranian hegemony. They will increasingly look to create their own nuclear balances and, if necessary call in other powers to sustain their integrity.”

President Obama’s upcoming Camp David summit with the Arab Gulf countries this week appears to be little more than a PR maneuver to try and reassure them that he will have their back. Unless Obama toughens his stance in the Iran nuclear negotiations, however, the leaders of these countries will have good cause to remain very concerned about the outcome of Obama’s fool’s errand and to turn elsewhere for military support.

A fully verifiable and enforceable agreement, including international inspections anywhere at any time, is a non-starter as far as the Iranian regime is concerned. However, the Obama administration is so desirous of a deal that it is willing to finesse the issue. The deal Obama is contemplating will also leave Iran with sufficient capacity, facilities, equipment and fissile material to break out and become a nuclear armed power with virtually no lag time, once the temporary restraints on its nuclear program are lifted. Freeing Iran from economic sanctions, which Iran is insisting must be completed when a final deal is signed or very shortly thereafter, will provide the regime with more resources to expand its influence to neighboring countries.

While squandering the opportunity to be on the side of change in Iran, whose current regime poses a strategic threat to the United States, Obama encouraged the toppling of autocratic but relatively stable Arab governments in the region. These countries’ regimes posed no strategic threat to the United States, but he risked all on the false promise of the Arab Spring. This also upset Saudi Arabia and other traditional Gulf state allies of the United States.

In remarks President Obama delivered at the State Department in May 2011, he heralded the Arab Spring as a transformational, liberating event in the Middle East and North Africa. He compared this movement by “ordinary citizens” for “self-determination” to “the defiance of those patriots in Boston who refused to pay taxes to a King, or the dignity of Rosa Parks as she sat courageously in her seat.” He added that “through the moral force of nonviolence, the people of the region have achieved more change in six months than terrorists have accomplished in decades.”

In his 2011 State Department remarks, Obama singled out Yemen, Libya and Syria as positive examples of countries where he claimed citizens yearning for freedom were finally able to speak out. “In Sanaa, we heard the students who chanted, ‘The night must come to an end,’” Obama declared. “In Benghazi, we heard the engineer who said, ‘Our words are free now. It’s a feeling you can’t explain.’ In Damascus, we heard the young man who said, ‘After the first yelling, the first shout, you feel dignity.’”

Instead, under his watch, anarchy and disintegration ensued in countries like Yemen, Libya and Syria, giving rise to a fundamental re-mapping of territories within and across the boundaries of the failed nation states.

On the one hand, large swaths of territory have fallen under the control of a pre-modern, jihadist self-proclaimed caliphate that would erase the national borders established following World War I in the wake of the downfall of the Ottoman Empire. The Islamic State, which Obama at first dismissed as akin to a junior varsity team, is successfully combining twenty-first century social media technologies to gain recruits and spread its propaganda all over the world with primitive barbaric acts of murder, rape, abductions and persecution. From its bases in Syria and Iraq, the Islamic State is spreading its tentacles to Libya where it is establishing a beachhead to migrate its jihadism to Europe. And it has a presence right here in the United States via homegrown adherents to its message of Islamic supremacy and killing of non-believers.

On the other hand, Iran is seeking to expand its hegemony throughout the Middle East and is succeeding. Even before the June 30th deadline for a nuclear deal with Iran, wrote national security and intelligence expert Dr. Norman A. Bailey in a column appearing in the May 5th edition of the Globes, “the map of the Middle East puzzle may have been extensively redrawn. That in turn is likely to cause further aggressive behavior on the part of an embattled Iran.” Dr. Bailey described a confrontation emerging between the “Sh’ia northern arc of Iran, Iraq, Assad and Hezbollah” and “the southern Sunni arc of Egypt, Jordan, Saudi Arabia and the Gulf States,” with Iran “adding to the confusion” by attempting to “outflank the Sunni arc in Yemen, and the rampaging Sunni Islamic State athwart the Sh’ia arc.”

The Obama administration has no evident coherent strategy to deal with all of these interconnected challenges to peace and security in the region.

Syria, for example, is now in its fifth year of civil war. More than 220,000 people have died so far, with no sign of clear victory by one side or the other. As Dr. Bailey explained, Syria could “break up into ethnic/religious enclaves and disappear as a state entity.” Iran and the Islamic State are running circles around the Obama administration in the meantime.

President Obama and senior officials in his administration have repeatedly called for Iranian-backed Syrian President Assad to step down, but to no avail. The one time that President Obama drew a red line, warning of an American military response if the Assad regime used chemical weapons, he backed off. Iran and other adversaries took note.

The Obama administration is supporting the so-called “moderate” opposition, which thrives more in exile than within the country itself. To the extent that “moderate” Syrian Free Army opposition forces are still fighting the Assad regime, it is too weak to make much of a difference and has had to even engage in tactical alliances with the stronger al-Nusra terrorist group, which in turn shares the Islamic State’s goal of imposing strict Islamic law within the territories they each control. Nevertheless, the Obama administration is embarking on a training and equipment program to enable Syrian Free Army forces to take on the common enemy of the United States and Iran, the Islamic State. U.S. bombing of Islamic State strongholds in Syria and Iraq is not enough to stop the Islamic State’s advance, but is helping to keep Assad in power. All the while, Iran is extending its own influence in both Syria and Iraq, where it has a presence on the ground through the intervention of its Revolutionary Guard and its terrorist proxy Hezbollah.

Post-Qaddafi-Libya has imploded into warring factions, with jihadists filling the vacuum and spreading terror throughout the country and beyond. President Obama led from behind in supporting NATO’s toppling of Muammar Qaddafi, and then left the broken country to fend for itself. Both the Islamic State and Iran have benefitted from the chaos.

Yemen, which President Obama pointed to last year as a successful model of his anti-terrorism strategy, is falling apart. The Shiite Iran-backed Houthis are fighting to topple the internationally recognized central government forced into exile, and have been taking control over large portions of the country. A Saudi-backed coalition is conducting airstrikes to push back the Houthis, with the support of the Obama administration.

With Al Qaeda taking advantage of the chaos to conduct more terrorist attacks of its own and Saudi airstrikes causing civilian casualties and a humanitarian crisis, Iran is positioning itself as the savior of the Yemenis. “The Americans shamelessly support the killing of the Yemeni population, but they accuse Iran of interfering in that country and of sending weapons when Iran only seeks to provide medical and food aid,” Iran’s Supreme Leader Ayatollah Ali Khamenei charged last week.

Iran’s warships did turn back recently from areas off Yemen’s coast after the U.S. Navy reinforced its own presence. However, Iran may be taking a page out of Russia’s playbook in Ukraine with its plans to send humanitarian aid to Yemen in cargo ships. Is there any real doubt as to what will be hidden in Iran’s cargo of medical and food supplies?

Egypt has been a strong stabilizing force in the Middle East and friend of the United States for decades. Unlike other nations in the region which were cobbled together after the fall of the Ottoman Empire, Egypt at least has a national identity rooted in thousands of years of a common history, traditions and culture. Western style democracy, however, has never been part of their traditions. Nevertheless, Obama threw America’s long-time ally President Hosni Mubarak under the bus in the name of democracy. In his 2011 State Department remarks about the Arab Spring, Obama declared: “In Cairo we heard the voice of the young mother who said, ‘It’s like I can finally breathe fresh air for the first time.’”

The Muslim Brotherhood-backed Mohamed Morsi was elected as president of Egypt in 2012, after a popular uprising backed by the Obama administration resulted in Mubarak’s removal from power. Morsi himself was overthrown in a second popular uprising a year later by millions of Egyptian citizens upset by Morsi’s attempt to impose the Muslim Brotherhood’s Islamist supremacist ideology on the entire country.

Obama supported Morsi and viewed the Muslim Brotherhood as a “moderate” alternative to both al Qaeda and to a secular dictator. He kept military aid flowing to the Muslim Brotherhood-controlled regime even as it trampled on the human rights of Egyptian citizens. In doing so, he played right into the hands of Iran’s leaders who believed that Egypt’s Muslim Brotherhood shared with them a common vision of an “Islamic Awakening” throughout the entire region.

The Obama administration recklessly suspended vital military aid to Morsi’s successor, President Abdul Fattah al-Sisi. This served to weaken the Egyptian government’s ability to fight jihadist terrorists, who have been seeking to re-impose Islamist rule in the country, including reportedly with some support from Iran’s Revolutionary Guards. Obama finally lifted the year-and-a-half–long suspension for most of the military aid earlier this spring, but it may be too little too late.

President Obama still blames former President George W. Bush for the mess Obama says he inherited in the Middle East. No incoming president is handed a problem-free world, and the Middle East has been a volatile region since time immemorial. However, President Obama has made poor policy choices based on fundamentally flawed assumptions. In doing so, he has made a bad situation far worse.

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About Joseph Klein

Joseph Klein is a Harvard-trained lawyer and the author of Global Deception: The UN’s Stealth Assault on America’s Freedom and Lethal Engagement: Barack Hussein Obama, the United Nations & Radical Islam.

Deuce: Of course, the true litmus test of any Republican, first and foremost, outreaching any and all other issues, concerns and priorities, is the complete act of fealty to The Jewish State of Israel and the total subordination of the interests of the 315 million Americans to the colony club of seven million chosen recipients of eternal financial and political support of the US Conga Line.

Are you offended about the “chosen” part? Is that as offensive to you as, say, a caricature contest, conducted by a well publicized Zionist on how to be offensive to say Muslims? Has Ms. Geller changed religions?

The troops have been deployed to Jalisco in the strongest show of military might ever seen in Mexico, according to a report today by Milenio.

One week after a criminal gang, believed to be the Jalisco Nueva Generación cartel, shot down a Mexican Air Force Cougar helicopter killing six soldiers, the Armed Forces are on the move.

From San José de Avila to Villa Purificación, the municipality where the attack on the helicopter took place, on the highways and on the approaches to towns in the region, usually under the control of the cartels, is an impressive display of military machinery.

With the support of the Mexican Army, Federal and State Police, a group of armed civilians maintain a city under siege where a hunt unleashed out against Zenén Nava Sánchez, “El Chaparro”, who is the alleged leader of the criminal group “Los Rojos”.

The event shows the vacuum of authority that exists in the city and the level of impunity and the complicity of authorities and politicians with organized crime.

A new analysis by PunditFact found that of every statement made by a Fox News host or guest, over half of them were flat-out false. What’s more, only a measly 8% could be considered completely “true.”

In other words, a fancy review of hundreds of hours of video confirmed what many who watch Fox News with any regularity already know: Fox News lies. A lot. Like all the time.

Which isn’t to say that exposing Fox News’ irresponsible journalism isn’t an admirable goal. Despite its blatant spin doctoring, Fox still captivates a large portion of the news watching audience. On a near nightly basis, Fox News programs like “The O’Reilly Factor” and “The Kelly File” crush the competition. Given what we know about how poorly Fox informs its viewers, that paints a pretty grim picture for the millions who consume it without question.

Right now, you can look at the NBC/MSNBC file and see how that network’s pundits and on-air talent stand. For instance, 46 percent of the claims made by NBC and MSNBC pundits and on-air personalities have been rated Mostly False, False or Pants on Fire.

At FOX and Fox News Channel, that same number is 60 percent. At CNN, it’s 18 percent.

Libya has said it is deeply alarmed over EU proposals to take military action against the smugglers responsible for despatching tens of thousands of desperate migrants across the Mediterranean.

Federica Mogherini, the EU foreign policy chief, is to seek a mandate for the plan on Monday from the United Nations Security Council in New York.

The EU, supported by Britain, has proposed undertaking "systematic efforts to identify, capture and destroy vessels before they are used by traffickers".

But Ibrahim Dabbashi, Libya's ambassador to the UN, said his country had not been consulted about the plan and warned that military action would compromise Libya's sovereignty.

"The Libyan government has not been consulted by the European Union. They have left us in the dark about what their intentions are, what kind of military actions they are going to take in our territorial waters, so that is very worrying," he told the BBC World Service.

THIS IS THE IRAQ ISIS FREE DAY PROMISED US BY THE SELF DESCRIBED 'MILITARY EXPERT' JACK 'ASS' HAWKINS SOME MONTHS AGO.

Personally I'm getting a little worried. Shouldn't Mosul have fallen by now, and the boys be out in the desert to the west cleaning up the fleeing stragglers ? What about that oil facility that is falling to ISIS ? Why is that happening ?

I worry and suspicions come idling into my mind that maybe, just maybe, Jack didn't know what he was talking about at all.

Just spouting 'hot air' cause he likes the sound of his own words.

Well, two weeks left.........they better ramp up the effort though if Jack is not to be shown, once again, to be a TOTAL FOOL.

bob Thu May 27, 12:52:00 AM EDTBut I did rip off the bank for $7500 hundred dollars, when I was on my knees, and fighting for my economic life, on my aunt's credit card. But that wasn't really stealing, just payback. …

WASHINGTON (AP) -- Republican presidential candidate Ben Carson says the United States should rethink the notion that a president must enforce laws the Supreme Court declares constitutional.

Carson said Sunday "we need to discuss" the court's long-held power to review laws passed by Congress. That authority was established in the 1803 landmark case Marbury v. Madison.

Carson was asked on "Fox News Sunday" whether the executive branch is obligated to enforce laws that the Supreme Court declares constitutional.

"We need to get into a discussion of this because it has changed from the original intent," he said.

Carson has said a president is obliged to carry out laws passed by Congress, but not what he called "judicial laws" that emanate from courts.

On a different topic, Carson said he would not rule out military force against Russia, but it should be used only if the United States' safety were clearly at risk.

"I would, obviously, do that in consultation with very competent generals and people who are more knowledgeable in that area than I would be," said Carson, who has called Russian President Vladimir Putin a bully. "But, clearly, if the interest and the existence and the safety of the people of the United States was at stake - and that was the only way to protect them - of course, I would do whatever was necessary."

Carson is a former director of pediatric neurosurgery at Johns Hopkins Medical Institutions who has not held elected office.

He is getting into something he is entirely unfamiliar with and it is showing.

He is not an on-line educated advertising genius like you and no SupersalesMan. You might make a better candidate right out the starting gate until the folks figured out all your balloon had in it was hot air.

If your child has a brain tumor deep in its little brain, though, I'd suggest you look to Ben.

RUFUS claimed he had saved 'uncounted lives' by selling life insurance, but I never believed it.

I think Ben has actually saved many lives.

The difference between Ben and RUFUS is the difference between a Hyperion.....

>>>>Of Hyperion we are told that he was the first to understand, by diligent attention and observation, the movement of both the sun and the moon and the other stars, and the seasons as well<<<<

and a Satyr....

>>>>a ithyphallic male companion of Dionysus with horse-like (equine) features, including a horse-tail, horse-like ears, and sometimes a horse-like phallus. Early artistic representations sometimes include horse-like legs, but in 6th-century BC black-figure pottery human legs are the most common.[3] In Roman Mythology there is a concept similar to satyrs with goat-like features, the faun being half-man, half-goat. They are lovers of wine and women, and they are ready for every physical pleasure, but are not deep thinkers but given over to emotions. <<<<

That statement shows how stupid and illogical your thought processes are. What does his success as a doctor have to do with his qualifications as president? The man has proved he has the skills to operate on a defective brain brain. That skill in no way impacts on what is obviously a defective mind.

He is a declared candidate for president. He was recently asked if he wanted to recant his earlier statements that I mentioned above. He said no.

If you accept such things, he has already been disqualified as candidate under the Godwin Rule being the first candidate to compare the US to Nazi Germany.

Oh well, then, screw you, Quirk, he said the state of the government can currently be compared to aspects of Nazi Germany, and that the people are sheeple, just like you.

YOU BIG PHONY

Ben Carson Defends Comparison of US to Nazi Germany

Wednesday, 28 May 2014 09:33 PM

By Greg Richter

Dr. Ben Carson defended his past comparison of the United States to Nazi Germany in an appearance on CNN's "Crossfire" on Wednesday.

Carson's liberal counterpart for the night, former Democratic Ohio Gov. Ted Strickland, brought up the subject, saying, "The good doctor here compared our country to Nazi Germany, and that's the kind of rhetoric that is divisive and really tears our country apart."

Carson responded, "What I said is that most of the people in Nazi Germany did not believe in what Hitler was doing. But did they speak up? Did they say anything? Making the analogy that that can happen anywhere where people don't speak up, particularly when they disagree with what's going on."

Carson originally made the comparison to Breitbart TV in early March when he said political correctness is stifling free speech.

Story continues below video.

When Carson reiterated that point on "Crossfire," Strickland objected.

"No one is being shut up in America," he said. "You are on Fox News. You write books. Newt [Gringrich] talks. Stephanie [Cutter] talks. I talk."

Strickland said Carson was being contradictory for saying Americans live in "a Gestapo age" while his current best-selling book is titled "America the Beautiful."

"Well, did you read the book?" Carson asked.

Strickland said he had not.

"I rest my case," Carson replied.

In his book, Carson discusses what he says are the good and bad qualities of America and offers his ideas on how to get the country back on track.

Carson has used the "Gestapo" comparison before, telling Newsmax in February that the IRS used Gestapo tactics against him when he criticized President Barack Obama's policies during the National Prayer Breakfast in 2013.

Go away, Bob, you annoy me. You suffer the same mental deficiencies Carson does. Your thought processes are skewed and illogical, the analogies you construct absurd. You are constantly telling me what I mean when I speak of sheeple, Obama's strategy in Iraq, Geller, etc. You are wrong every time.

A short recitation of the wonders achieved by our Napoleon on the Potomac -

May 11, 2015Obama's Failed Foreign PolicyBy Slater Bakhtavar

The Obama administration's foreign policy in the Middle East and parts of North Africa has been a series of disasters – at times spectacular disasters – almost since day one. It is ironic that a man who claims to respect the dignity of every human being should have such an egregious record of abandoning people in need of his help, up to and including those specifically looking to him for aid. One needs only to point to a Middle Eastern country to find an example of his international incompetence.

No such discussion is complete without mentioning the site of some of Obama's most flagrant failures to act: Iran. In 2009, arguably millions of Iranian protesters took to the streets demanding freedom, democracy, and human rights in what has come to be known as "The Green Movement." Angered by the highly suspicious re-election of then-president Mahmoud Ahmadinejad, this overwhelmingly peaceful outburst of popular demonstrations has taken on a life of its own, standing for the fundamental dignity of a people and their right to self-govern. Rightly idolizing the United States for the principles of liberty and justice that are so basic as to be taken for granted by most Americans, the Iranian protesters began emulating their Western counterparts, dressing in jeans and other modern U.S. apparel. They even specifically sought help from President Barack Obama, chanting, "Obama, Obama, ya ba oona ya bama" (Farsi for "Obama, you are either with them or with us") in the streets.

The very day after they made this bold declaration, Obama publicly stated that the Green Movement was an internal affair of Iran, not to be commented or acted upon by America. Iranians were devastated, left to fend for themselves by a nation that claimed to stand for the very virtues they sought to achieve.

Things were little better in Syria, where rather than show support for a popular uprising that opposed the tyrannical Assad regime, Obama again turned a blind eye and a deaf ear to those who needed his help. To be sure, this author is not claiming that he should have utilized direct military intervention in Syria, which would have been an unmitigated disaster, but the leader of the most powerful nation in the world has a great many diplomatic tools at his disposal. Obama used none of them.

Military force actually was used in Libya, though in reality these were merely attacks against the Gaddafi regime. The irony, of course, is that Gaddafi had modernized Libya's economy, implemented social reforms, and begun to work alongside the United States on a limited basis. Ultimately, Libya fell to extensions of the Muslim Brotherhood and other radical Islamic factions. Today, the nation is in danger of fracturing, causing instability in important oil regions. And of course, Libya played host to the Benghazi fiasco, a foreign affairs nightmare that continues to haunt Obama to this day.

In Egpyt, Obama chose to oppose stalwart U.S. ally Hosni Mubarak, calling for him to step down in the face of protests against his regime. In this particular case, Obama actually became friendly with the Muslim Brotherhood and similar Islamist organizations, only to clumsily attempt to distance himself and the United States from them when he realized that he risked strengthening their influence in the Middle East and North Africa as a result.

Iraq has been yet another catastrophe. Inheriting a decidedly delicate situation brought about by the actions of former U.S. President George W. Bush, Obama chose to handle it in one of the worst possible ways: premature withdrawal of all American forces. Now, without the U.S. to hold down insurgency, the radical group ISIS has risen to tremendous and frightening prominence. Well-armed and well-organized, this militant band has forcefully spread across Iraq, frankly humiliating the regular Iraqi army in its attempts to stop them, and undermining U.S. interests in the country after over a decade of war and the loss of over a trillion dollars and thousands of American lives. Due to Obama's policy of washing his hands of America's responsibility to Iraq, ISIS has had free rein to terrorize the countryside. They have viciously persecuted Iraqi Christians, demanding they convert to Islam, leave their homes, or die. Refugees now pour into northern Iraq as a result. Faced with the disastrous consequences of his actions (or rather, his commitment to inaction), Obama has recently conducted air strikes against selected ISIS targets, but the versatile group has already begun to adapt, and American commanders of the effort admit that the air strike strategy's long-term benefit is questionable...............and on and on....

“When a trio of hooded men struck at some of our most cherished democratic principles, freedom of expression, freedom of the press, they assaulted democracy everywhere . . . They have declared war on anybody who does not think and act exactly as they wish they would think and act . . . . they have declared war on any country, like ourselves, that values freedom, openness and tolerance.”

CBC, today:

“Ottawa threatening hate charges against those who boycott Israel”

The Harper government is signaling its intention to use hate crime laws against Canadian advocacy groups that encourage boycotts of Israel.

Such a move could target a range of civil society organizations, from the United Church of Canada and the Canadian Quakers to campus protest groups and labour unions.

If carried out, it would be a remarkably aggressive tactic, and another measure of the Conservative government’s lockstep support for Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu. . . .

The government’s intention was made clear in a response to inquiries from CBC News about statements by federal ministers of a “zero tolerance” approach to groups participating in a loose coalition called Boycott, Divest and Sanction (BDS), which was begun in 2006 at the request of Palestinian non-governmental organizations.

Asked to explain what zero tolerance means, and what is being done to enforce it, a spokesperson for Public Safety Minister Steven Blaney replied, four days later, with a detailed list of Canada’s updated hate laws, noting that Canada has one of the most comprehensive sets of such laws “anywhere in the world.”

We shall see if they do it and if they do whether it will survive the courts. Harper and co. may just get turfed on their ass this fall. From that CBC article:

"If carried out, it would be a remarkably aggressive tactic, and another measure of the Conservative government's lockstep support for Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu.

While the federal government certainly has the authority to assign priorities, such as pursuing certain types of hate speech, to the RCMP, any resulting prosecution would require an assent from a provincial attorney general.

And it would almost certainly be challenged under the Charter of Rights and Freedoms, civil liberties groups say."

Canada is ramping up for a Federal Election and one of Harper favorite tactics is to parcel out various 'voting blocs' and pandering directly to them. He has made it very clear to the Jewish voters that he is a hard core supporter of Israel.

There can’t be that many Jews in Canada. He is pandering to the Conservative Christian wackadoos that need Israel to die so that they all go to heaven. A Pew Research Center poll found in 2010 that 48 percent of American Christians believe Jesus will probably or definitely return within the next 40 years, showing that there’s a profound interest — at the least — in the general teaching that the Christian savior is on his way. There must be a similar number of Canadians that believe Jesus is coming back.

Their are quite a lot of Jews in Canada and they tend to vote, but yes, the conservative Christians (among many others) also approve of a pro-Israeli approach. The youth, who tend not to vote, seem to be more amenable to the Palestinian position and some of them have been pushing the BDS movement.

Harper probably believes the Israel support is righteous. He also panders and they do their math - proportions who vote ect. and he loves to push wedge issues. We shall see how he fares next time around - he's done well to date.

Like Pam Geller, Zimmerman went looking for trouble and he found it. Like Geller, he probably created it. Your comprehension level should accept that. You seem to understand that dressing someone up as an Israeli Jew, like one of the Gaza’s tormenters, and having them marching around the Gaza confinement camp, would have predictable consequences. Of course it would.

Aside fro a demented gal who threw stood in front of one to stop the dozing of a terrorist's empty home, I dare say that I can't recall any other people killed by dozers unless you look at jews being run over by Palestinians and heavy equipment and such

But really, WHen you get down to it?

Gaza had an election and chose to have a genocidal war with all jews on the planet…

You dolt. I thought I told you not to address any more comments to me.

I put the post up as a factoid, a description of the book. Did you see any commentary from me?

Hersch's is just one more is a long list of writers or propagandists trying to exploit the OBL raid to their own advantage. None of them tell the entire truth but some of them are more bizarre than others. There are books written by conspiracy theorists, men involved in the raid, some politically motivated, and even books manipulated by the CIA for their own ends (Zero Dark Thirty).

In Hersch's case, I get the feeling that he isn't actually lying but rather that he is a sick man who has lost it, his credulity stretched to the limit, perhaps seeking some of the success of his glory days in all the wrong places.

However, as I told you before, if you want to say something about me or something I post do it and I will ignore. Don't address anything directly to me. You are too stupid to indulge in a conversation with.

The Muhammad Art Exhibit and Contest in Garland, Tex., was not really about free speech. It was an exercise in bigotry and hatred posing as a blow for freedom. ... Pamela Geller, the anti-Islam campaigner behind the Texas event, has a long history of declarations and actions motivated purely by hatred for Muslims.

Whether fighting against a planned mosque near ground zero, posting to her venomous blog Atlas Shrugs or organizing the event in Garland, Ms. Geller revels in assailing Islam in terms reminiscent of virulent racism or anti-Semitism. She achieved her provocative goal in Garland—the event was attacked by two Muslims who were shot to death by a traffic officer before they killed anyone.

Those two men were would-be murderers. But their thwarted attack, or the murderous rampage of the Charlie Hebdo killers, or even the greater threat posed by the barbaric killers of the Islamic State or Al Qaeda, cannot justify blatantly Islamophobic provocations like the Garland event.

Twitter reaction to George Zimmerman being shot at exactly what you’d expectposted at 5:21 pm on May 11, 2015 by Allahpundit

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I don’t just mean the high-fiving and too-bad-he-didn’t-die’s, either. I mean all of the Twitter reaction — the death wishes, the instant partisan back and forth, and of course the dogged fact-checking of our tireless media, which framed a story about a guy nearly getting shot in the face through his passenger side window without firing a shot himself this way:

That’s the second time in four days that someone in the press has implied that the target of a potentially lethal attack is somehow to blame for it. And oddly enough, in both cases, that target happens to be someone whom the left really, really dislikes.

Incidentally, this story is even weirder than it seems at first blush. The shooter is allegedly the same guy with whom Zimmerman had a confrontation last September, in which he supposedly rolled up to the guy at a traffic light as part of some road-rage episode and said, “Do you know who I am? I’ll f***ing kill you.” Two days later, this same guy called 911 to report that he’d seen Zimmerman in the parking lot where he works; Zimmerman claimed it was a coincidence and that he was there for a doctor’s appointment. How they ran into each other today is as yet unclear, but reportedly the shooter drove back to work after the shooting and began telling co-workers what happened. Was this a boast or a “the cops will be here soon and here’s why” explanation to prepare them for a media circus?

Obviously there’s some backstory that has yet to come out about how they know each other and why this “road rage” vendetta is now in its eighth month. Already looking forward to a new Twitter fiasco this evening as details inevitably leak.

Deuce ☂Mon May 11, 04:53:00 PM EDTLike Pam Geller, Zimmerman went looking for trouble and he found it. Like Geller, he probably created it. Your comprehension level should accept that. You seem to understand that dressing someone up as an Israeli Jew, like one of the Gaza’s tormenters, and having them marching around the Gaza confinement camp, would have predictable consequences. Of course it would.

Yeah those innocent islamic scholars with body armor and ak-47's that drove 1000 miles to murder as many people as possible. But let's be clear, those folks like Geller were LOOKING for trouble for hosting a "DRAW MOHAMMED" contest...

The Saudis killed thousands in New York, Pennsylvania and Washington. What did Bush and Cheney, two real warriors, one six times deferred and the other a rich man’s brat, who went AWOL, do to the Saudis?

17 year olds weren’t drafted. You needed your father’s permission. I saw myself as a marine but my father didn’t. I took what ever he signed and off I went. You didn’t. That is what I know. I count three regulars on this blog that did serve. All three have pacifistic tendencies. Why is that tough guy?

She wanted to taunt, to get in their face just like some crazed hater would conduct a “Draw the Jew” contest. It worked. Out of the hundreds of thousands, two deranged fools took her bait.

She is a sordid pig. Scum, a vile ugly bitch that succeeded in spreading her hate.

You should recognize her. You are far less successful at it but your heart is in the right place. Black Rock Nuking Man that you are, cheering for joy as the Sunnis and the Shiites kill each other, as your team destroys the lives in Gaza. You’re the pop-corn passing guy that has yet to find a human slaughter that you didn’t like as long as they were Muslims and no Jews were getting hurt.

Anyway, there's one asshole on this blog that has wanted to hang - I call it 'rope on the rumor" - in the last four episodes of black/Police/Neighborhood Watch confrontations the cops without even 'most of the information in', but with no information at all being in........that asshole, being unafraid to name names in his case, is RUFUS the Rumor Roper.

It’s not a good day for the left when 96% of a nation votes for right-wing or center-right-wing candidates for president ahead of run-offs, but this is what happened in Poland yesterday. A previously unknown 42-year-old, Andrzej Duda, got the highest projected percentage in the race, beating out the incumbent president, Bronislaw Komorowski, who had been heavily favored to win outright.

Poland is following the path of the United Kingdom, where the Conservatives (despite ambiguous polls) pulled out a decisive majority in Parliament last week. The run-off election is in two weeks, but the results so far are already being called a historic win for the Law and Justice Party of Mr. Duda.

Duda and his party are anti-corruption and politically Euroskeptic, and they take a hard line on relations with Putin’s Russia, which has been doing its best to provoke and frighten the Poles with its revanchist approach to Ukraine. The party’s platform is firmly Atlanticist, and it desires ever greater military and political cooperation with the superpower.

Polish commentator Pawel Wronski called Sunday's lurch to the right "the biggest surprise in Polish politics in the last years." Mr. Duda himself described his initial win as "a serious warning for the whole broadly defined governing camp," and he argues that if Poland adopts the Euro currency, as President Komorowski wants, consumer inflation will skyrocket.

Poland holds eastern Europe’s largest economy, which has been on a bit of a tear in recent years. But since Poland joined the EU in 2004, more than two million Poles have left the country for greener pastures in the Eurozone. Some of this has to do with the Russian Bear lurking over the border.

A Polish diplomat put it to British journalist Natalie Nougayrède this way: “In 2014, with the Russian annexation of Crimea and the Russian assault in the Donbass, the unthinkable became reality.” Fear over Russian aggression, she wrote, “is deeply felt by the population.”

Poland hasn’t forgotten the horrific plane crash five years ago in Smolensk that killed 96 Poles, including the anti-Russian president and a good slice of the nation’s top defense and national security establishment. President Putin still refuses to authorize the return of the jet’s wreckage, long after the Russian “investigation” was completed. Poles are understandably curious just what this pile of twisted metal would actually show the world, and why Russia won’t turn it over.

The nation has asked NATO for reassurance, which has been given sparsely: NATO performed its first ever exercises in Poland this year and promises to construct a new “rapid-reaction force” to meet any threat. Poland has repeatedly requested the presence of two American Army brigades under NATO to be stationed in-country but has so far been rebuffed.

But it’s the Russian aggression in Ukraine that really drives Poles to distraction. “If Putin is undeterred in Ukraine, he may go further and stir trouble, for example in the Baltic states. If he is not met with a sufficient response, it will open an era of NATO weakness that would be very undermining,” opined Marcin Zaborowski, who heads the Polish Institute of International Affairs.

Counting on President Obama to deter Russia from further aggression on its borders may be a bridge too far. With President Putin sending Bear bombers routinely to the skies over the British Isles, and even submarines to the Irish Sea, all with nary a word from the American administration, Poland can count only on itself.

Christopher S. Carson, a lawyer, holds a master’s degree in National Security Studies from Georgetown University.

Magnificent Ronald and the Founding Fathers of al Qaeda

“These gentlemen are the moral equivalents of America’s founding fathers.” — Ronald Reagan while introducing the Mujahideen leaders to media on the White house lawns (1985). During Reagan’s 8 years in power, the CIA secretly sent billions of dollars of military aid to the mujahedeen in Afghanistan in a US-supported jihad against the Soviet Union. We repeated the insanity with ISIS against Syria.